Bloomberg
By Sahil Kapur
December 21, 2015
U.S.
Senator Marco Rubio returned to New Hampshire for a three-day swing on
Monday with a lot of ground to make up before the first primary ballots
of the Republican presidential
race are cast. A promising young favorite of party elites, he faces
concerns about the wisdom of his campaign strategy and lack of a clear
path to the nomination.
The
Floridian's strategy appears to involve unifying the GOP's
establishment wing behind him and siphoning enough votes from his Senate
colleague, Ted Cruz, to prevent
the Texan from consolidating the party's conservative wing. That would
enable Rubio, rather than Cruz, to emerge as the party's alternative to
Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman who has been leading national
polls since the summer.
According
to people in Rubio's orbit, the campaign views the well-funded Cruz as
its primary long-term threat and wants to halt his recent momentum.
Rubio's advisers think
he has an equally good shot of winning over conservatives, given the
near equal popularity the two senators enjoy among Republican voters
(favorable-to-unfavorable ratings of 58-18 for Cruz; 55-18 for Rubio,
according to a recent poll).
But
less than six weeks before the first votes of the race will be cast,
Rubio has a light footprint in Iowa and New Hampshire compared to some
of his chief competitors
in each state. Eschewing the kind of labor-intensive retail campaigning
that voters in those early-voting states traditionally demand, Rubio is
waging a gamble by running a more national- and media-driven campaign.
He has also placed a premium on landing wealthy
donors, with notable successes.
As
a result, in New Hampshire, which may be Rubio's best bet for an early
state victory, some Republican voters view him as a man of mystery. Even
as he faces fire for
missing Senate votes, Rubio has spent less time in the state and has
fewer campaign staff and volunteers than some of his rivals.
"It's
a problem for him if he's not gonna show up here," said Bill Dunham,
68, of Brentwood, N.H., an undecided voter at a rally for New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie
on Saturday in Exeter. "Nobody's ever called me on the phone or emailed
me saying Marco Rubio is going to be in Exeter—or somewhere around
here. I don't even know where he is at the moment."
Renee
Plummer, a prominent and widely-courted Republican activist in New
Hampshire, said Rubio is well-liked and has something "special" but that
his sparse visits to
the Granite State aren't helping him.
"You
have to be here. People want to see you," said Plummer. She has
endorsed Christie, who's surging in the state. Asked to describe Rubio's
reputation among New Hampshire
Republicans, Plummer said, "That he missed a lot of votes. That maybe
there's a few things there that haven't come out about him."
If Rubio falters early, some strategists wonder if he can recover.
"The
overall contest is heavily influenced by the momentum candidates get
from wins or perceived wins. It becomes difficult to consolidate support
if you don't have one
of the early states in your trophy case," said Kevin Madden, a former
top adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. "Is there a
path without a win in one of those states? Possibly, but it's a path
with longer odds."
Never
in the modern nominating contest has a Republican won the nomination
after losing both Iowa and New Hampshire. Rudy Giuliani's once
front-running 2008 campaign faded
after he failed in the early states. Romney's 2012 victory in New
Hampshire helped him consolidate support and gradually knock off rivals.
"There is no substitute for a good ground game," said Republican strategist and lobbyist John Feehery.
A focus on Ted Cruz
Over
the past month, Rubio's campaign has zeroed in on Cruz, working
relentlessly to undermine the Republican presidential field's other
Cuban American freshman senator.
In the span of 48 hours late last week, Rubio's campaign sent reporters
no fewer than 11 e-mails seeking to undercut Cruz’s image as a
consistent conservative, compared to zero e-mails about all other
candidates.
That
has raised some eyebrows, given that Rubio is hardly a lock for the
establishment wing, facing competition from Christie, Jeb Bush and John
Kasich, all of whom are
putting it all on the line in New Hampshire and all of whom have been
barnstorming the state since the weekend.
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant declined to comment on the campaign's strategy.
John
Sides, a professor of political science at George Washington
University, said Rubio is betting on two things: first, that no
candidate emerges from Iowa or New Hampshire
with significant momentum; and second, that Trump and Cruz will fail to
unify the party, in which case one or both could falter in later
contests, particularly the delegate-rich blue states. "But I still think
that failing to win either [Iowa or New Hampshire]
poses challenges—especially for a candidate like Rubio who is also
unlikely to win [South Carolina]," Sides said.
Rubio's
team has highlighted 2013 remarks in which Cruz appeared to leave open
the possibility of supporting legal status for undocumented immigrants.
"When you run by
telling everybody you're the only purist in the field, you're the only
one that's always consistent conservative, well, I think then your
record is going to have a light shone on it," Rubio said on CBS' Face
The Nation on Sunday.
Immigration
is a critical issue that divides Rubio, who co-authored and voted for a
bipartisan immigration bill, and Cruz, who voted against it and tried
to scuttled it.
Their positions remain different today: Rubio backs an expansion of
legal immigration and, eventually, a path to citizenship, while Cruz has
ruled out legalization and has turned against legal immigration
programs. In a Republican nomination fight dominated
by conservative voters hostile to what they see as "amnesty" for people
living in the U.S. illegally, that would seem to make immigration a
bigger vulnerability for Rubio, making the Floridian's decision to lean
in to the fight curious. But one Republican
strategist sees historical precedent for the move.
"Rubio
is playing offense against Cruz by attempting to turn his strength on
the immigration issue into a weakness on the campaign tail. This is very
similar to the Swift
Boat attacks by President [George W.] Bush against John Kerry in the
2004 election," said Ron Bonjean, referring to the successful effort to
turn Kerry's Vietnam War service into a political liability.
New Hampshire: Do or die?
A
nagging question for Rubio during his New Hampshire visit is whether he
is overestimating his ability to stay competitive in the long-run
without a victory in an early
state. Should he go all-in there over the coming weeks? Without New
Hampshire, his long-term path could narrow dramatically.
For the time being, Rubio's biggest enemy may be a perception that he's being complacent or taking voters for granted.
"I'm
not sure Marco Rubio understands New Hampshire," said Rick Bender, 67, a
retired Air Force colonel lieutenant from Kingston, N.H. "You gotta
come to New Hampshire
and meet the people. It's retail politics."
Added
Plummer, the Portsmouth-based activist: "I think [Rubio is] a great
person. I think he just needs some time. Maybe if he became somebody's
vice president. I think
maybe that's what he's looking to do."
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